From there, things get crazier for Elisabeth and Sue, and Qualley remembers that the script was “so unique, evocative and crazy” when she first read it. Moore’s first thought was that the film would be “either something extraordinary or an absolute disaster,” she said. “That made it exciting, that it was worth taking a risk, because it was also such an unconventional way of dealing with this subject” and “examining the harsh ways in which we criticize ourselves.”

Fargeat last attended the Toronto Festival in 2017 with her action thriller “Revenge.” The film is about a woman (Matilda Lutz) who is raped and then hunts down the three men responsible. After that film, “I felt in a stronger position” to express “what I wanted to say about the problems women face in the face of violence. And I felt strong enough to explore the next level,” says the filmmaker. “I was also over 40 and starting to feel the pressure… that I was going to be erased, that I was going to disappear. And I felt like I really wanted to put out a loud scream, a loud call that we should do things differently and try to free ourselves from all this pressure that leads us to be willing to express all the violence.”

For Fargeat, it was important that “The Substance” presented violence and gore from a female perspective. “When I was growing up as a little girl, horror films tended to be very gendered. These kinds of films were for boys, what boys watched. And when I watched these films, I felt like I was entering a world that I wasn’t supposed to be in, and it was super exciting.”